In memoriam - Yayoi Kusama (1929–2026) As this discussion draft was published, the passing of Yayoi Kusama was announced . The network considered in these pages shares her name and, fittingly, something of her spirit: radical experimentation, a refusal of established boundaries, and the creation of…

TL;DR. Three things are missing from the paper, and each one changes its conclusion. Market capitalisation is the wrong basis for comparing the two networks, because it masks what is weak about the stronger one. On that measure Polkadot’s validator bill is 1.52% of its market capitalisation agains…

I read this from the DOT side, which the scope section invites, and I should declare the interest birdbrain declared: I filed referendum 1927 and I supported 1926, so I hold a stake in exactly the question this paper defers to DOT DAO. The paper is careful with its own assumptions, which is what mak…

First, a disclosure: I have been a Kusama validator for about 18 months, first under the Web3 Foundation’s DN program and since its sunset as an independent validator/operator. I was also a PoP bounty curator in the Kusama Vision program for 6 months, since the program was launched in January 2026, …

In my opinion, Kusama needs to halve the number of validators and reduce inflation. Kusama isn’t competing to be the most decentralized network. Having that many validators is unsustainable. Where Kusama should compete is in having the cheapest transactions in the entire crypto industry. It was one…

@florentina57 Thank you for putting your position on the record the way you did, disclosure and vote both. A validator who helps shrink the active set knowing most nodes fall out of it has standing to ask them. I am sorry the Kusama Vision curatorship ended the way it did for you. On the validator …

Thanks for the article, Emiel! I personally think that options 3 (mini JAM) and 5 (Polkadot cohabitation) are the most promising ones. Especially considering that option 5 would demonstrate to the world that JAM can indeed serve multiple disjoint tenants. This could open avenues for other projects…

Hi, and thanks @emielsebastiaan for this post. I think the interesting part of 3 vs 5 is actually what Kusama becomes afterwards ^^ 3 keeps Kusama as independent as possible, but the cost of running its own JAM/security seems very hard to sustain with the current KSM economy. 5 makes much more se…

Thank you for all the responses so far. We are working on a follow-up post.

I choose the number 2 option! I’ve been thinking about the future of Kusama in the JAM era, and I honestly find myself leaning toward a rather unpopular conclusion or maybe some of you also agree with me? I think shutting down Kusama, or merging it with Polkadot, may ultimately make more sense for …

Honestly, reading through this discussion, I keep coming back to one simple question: Why are we still spending the Treasury when we don’t even know where Kusama is going? We’re discussing whether Kusama should continue, become a lighter JAM network, share infrastructure with Polkadot, merge, or p…

Kusama Futures in the JAM Era

Governance

emielsebastiaan September 18, 2026, 7:19am 20

We published our follow-up to this discussion in a position paper: A Proposal for a Kusama Future on JAM Prime

We encourage further discussion to take place is the new forum post.

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Kusama Futures in the JAM Era

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